KARACHI (UNESCO): 244 million children and youth are out of school according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics: 118.5 million are girls and 125.5 million are boys.
And women still account for nearly two-thirds of the 771 million adults without basic literacy skills.
Poverty, geographical isolation, minority status, disability, early marriage and pregnancy, gender-based violence, and traditional attitudes about the status and role of women and men, are among the many obstacles that prevent children and youth from fulfilling their right to participate in, complete and benefit from education.
Gender equality is a global priority for UNESCO. It is inextricably linked to its mandate to lead the Education 2030 Agenda which recognizes that gender equality requires an approach that ‘ensures that girls and boys, women and men not only gain access to and complete education cycles but are empowered equally in and through education’.
UNESCO believes in the transformative power of education to foster a more just, prosperous and inclusive world for us all.
Gender-transformative education unlocks the potential of learners in all their diversity, contributes to ending harmful gender norms, attitudes and practices, and transforms institutions to achieve just, equal and inclusive societies.
Girls’ and women’s education also has the power to save lives, stimulating multiplier effects that reduce poverty, maternal and infant mortality, and early marriage.
UNESCO promotes gender equality throughout the education system including participation in education (access), within education (content, teaching and learning context and practices) and through education (learning outcomes, life and work opportunities). This work is guided by the UNESCO Strategy for gender equality in and through education (2019-2025) and the Gender Equality Action Plan.
It focuses on system-wide transformation to benefit all learners equally across three priority areas: better data to inform action, better legal and policy frameworks to advance rights and better teaching and learning practices to empower.
A particular emphasis is placed on girls’ and women’s education through UNESCO’s Her education, our future initiative, designed to accelerate action and leadership in this area. UNESCO supports countries through platforms such as the UNESCO Malala Fund for Girls’ Right to Education and the UNESCO-UNFPA-UN Women Joint Programme, and partnerships such as the UNESCO-CJ Strategic Partnership for girls’ education.
UNESCO also produces a global monitoring report on gender equality in education and tracks gender gaps in education indicators across countries and between groups within countries on its World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE).
UNESCO places emphasis on education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to address the fact that girls and women are under-represented in this field both in school and in the job market.
Too many girls and women are held back by bias, social norms and expectations influencing the education they receive and the subjects they study. Gaps are greatest in engineering and ICT, where young women make up only 25% of students in this fields in two-thirds of countries with data.
UNESCO’s groundbreaking report Cracking the code: Girls’ and women’s education in STEM was the first to highlight the barriers stifling girls‘ and women’s engagement in these fields, and provide practical solutions on how these barriers can be overcome.
UNESCO supports countries to deliver gender-transformative STEM education, and raise girls’ and women’s interest and participation in these fields seen as key for our collective future.
Nationwide school closures impacted more than 1.5 billion learners from pre-primary to secondary education and millions are at risk of dropping out of school due to the pandemic’s economic impact.
A Gender Flagship under the Global Education Coalition is helping countries to build back equal and protect the gains on gender equality and education made in the past 25 years.
UNESCO and members of the Gender Flagship launched a campaign entitled Keeping girls in the picture promoting the importance of girls’ continuity of learning amid COVID-19 and girls’ safe return to school.
The global report When schools shut provides key information on addressing the gender dimensions of COVID-related school closures, while the Building back equal: Girls back to school guide supports policymakers and practitioners in Ministries of Education and their partners to ensure girls’ continuity of learning and to establish evidence-based plans for girls’ safe return to school.
UNESCO
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